Pirate Bay lawyer files for retrial, alleging bias

The four men sentenced to a year in prison and fined $3.6 million after being found guilty of assisting copyright infringement should be given a new trial because the Judge was biased, a court heard on Monday. The lawyer for Carl Lundstrom, one of the four founders of the Pirate BayBitTorrenttracker, said that Judge Tomas Norstrom's affiliation with groups for copyright protection should have disqualified him.

"Tomas Norstrom was biased during the trial ... Secondly, he neglected to inform the defendants and their lawyers of the facts that constituted the bias," defense lawyer Per Samuelson said in the document, obtained by Reuters. The court of appeal now must decide whether to send the case back to District Court.

Judge Norstrom is a member of The Swedish Association for Copyright and a board member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property. Peter Danowsky, A board member of The Swedish Association for Copyright, represented the film and music industries in the trial. Lundstrom's lawyer last week filed an appeal, asking the court of appeal to change the verdict and dismiss the prosecution and the claims for compensation.

He also said the court should turn to the European court of justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling.

4 user comments

i knew it..they just cannot simply say like they are guilty.
as one said earlier just because some guys use cars for speeding u cannot just sentence the car company owner for 1 yr n some fine..
the guilty is the user but not the car company owner.
piratebay rules....
or atleast these loosers should make one service like this without being used illegally n then file a case against TPB...

people have been able to sue the gun makers because some person killed someone! but your right platdream, guns don't kill people, cars don't speed by them selfs, and pirated movies aren't distributed by PIRATE BAY. all they did was set up a website, and random people distributed them!

I sure will miss it though.... if I get arrested by saying that, I'm going to sue afterdawn!! just joking!!! don't kick me afterdawn! I love it here!!!!!!

Originally posted by duperfly: all they did was set up a website, and random people distributed them!

Luckily, its currently not against the law to ENABLE someone to copyright infringe. Fact, they ENABLE users to do what they do. The problem with changing laws to include companies like TPB is that it would also include companies like Yahoo, Google, and MS (for Live search).